Is Paperless Good for your Dental Practice ROI?

A paperless office has long been a dream of enterprises regardless of the industry they operate in. Healthcare organizations are no different and the popularity of EHRs, practice management systems and other electronic products have actually made it feasible to eliminate much of the paperwork that constitutes day to day work in any clinic or hospital.

Replacing paper with electronic data may be convenient but the real question is if such a move makes financial sense for the practice. Upgrading to EHR systems includes many hidden costs such as training employees to use computers and the new product. During the transition, productivity is likely to drop and some people may struggle to adapt. These costs need to be weighed against the potential benefits before implementing any EHR.

In some ways, the productivity gains from an EHR may appear insignificant but even small gains in one process can quickly add up when the same action needs to be performed thousands of times in a day. For instance if the receptionist is able to schedule appointments just 5 to 6 minutes faster with the EDR, it can translate into tens of hours saved during the course of a typical week.

Sometimes, going paperless can compress the time needed to complete a process by more than 50%. Cutting down processing times directly contributes to a positive ROI, since it frees up employees for more valuable workflows instead of mundane/routine tasks. Generally these improvements can be seen over time as doctors adapt to the software and become more proficient in using it.

Implementing a paperless office also has an immediate and direct impact on ROI – the clinic doesn’t have to spend as much on buying paper, printers, ink, postage and other paraphernalia associated with manual filing systems. Practices are required to retain old records for legal purposes which means that many of them end up dedicating entire rooms or off-site warehouses to store them. With EHRs, such records are generally backed up and stored on servers freeing up much needed space and financial resources.

Dovetail EDR stores patient data on HIPAA compliant servers to enable multiple users to access the same records. All data is continuously backed up to the cloud which means that even if a particular computer breaks down, patient records can be accessed from any mobile device with an Internet connection. Once your clinic goes paperless with Dovetail, critical patient data can be kept safe and secure from any disaster at a fraction of the cost compared to paper records.